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This key step brings your value proposition to life

Posted byIan Brodie on November 11th, 2020.

I left you on a bit of a cliffhanger last email – sorry – just not enough room in a single email!

So we'd got up to rating the different areas of value we provide to clients and how different they were to what our competitors offered. All based on feedback from clients and our own assessment of our strengths and weaknesses.

And I said there was one key step you need to do before deciding on your value proposition.

And that's to take a step back from all this data on the value you currently provide and how different you currently are…

…and think about what you want it to be.

And not only is this a crucial step, it's immensely liberating.

(Thanks again to Sean D'Souza's book The Brain Audit for this idea).

You don't have to worry if you're not quite bringing enough value or if you're different enough and how you'll somehow wordsmith that into sounding great.

You decide the value you want to deliver and the difference you want to have.

Now obviously you have to ground it in reality. Build it on the strengths you've already identified rather than conjuring it out of thin air.

But just look at where you are and think about where you could be in 3 months or 6 months time if you really put your mind to it.

And then make that your value proposition. Something ambitious and truly valuable.

To give you a practical example, I've been thinking about the value proposition for my website in the last week or so. It's essentially the same process.

What I've heard time and time again from clients is that the blog posts and tutorials on my site are really practical and more in-depth than they've seen elsewhere.

And they're more “real world” – they're things a typical consultant who's not focused 100% on marketing can actually do.

They also like the human side of me being honest with what's worked and not worked for me – there's a degree of trust there because I don't pretend to be some all-knowing guru.

And when I benchmarked my site against other sites that cover marketing for consultants what I saw was that a lot of my articles (in particular the “ultimate guides” and my value-based marketing guide) were indeed much more in-depth and comprehensive that the shorter blog posts I see on other sites.

And those posts are where the majority of my website traffic comes from too.

So I found myself thinking “Could my site realistically become the ‘go to' reference site for marketing for consultants (or coaches or trainers)?”.

The place you would go to for in-depth, practical guides to the major topics.

And the conclusion I came to was that yes, it could.

It's ambitious.

I'd have a lot of work to do to go from a handful of really in-depth articles on topics I just happened to get inspired to write about to much more comprehensive coverage.

But I could get there over time.

Going back to our two key value proposition criteria, it would be immensely valuable to potential clients and it would be a huge differentiator.

The value would stand out a mile. No need for clever wordsmithing.

Most likely it would do very well in Google search too.

Perhaps most important of all, the more I thought about it, the more excited I got about the idea.

It was something that would really be valued. And something I could get my teeth into.

In addition to all the logical stuff about value propositions, that's something you want too.

Something that gets you excited.

I don't think you can get that from just playing around and evaluating your existing strengths and offers.

I think you need to come up with something that's a stretch for you that you can work towards.

Then you have a value proposition that's both powerful in terms of its ability to attract clients and in its ability to motivate you to action.

Does your value proposition do that yet?

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The grunt work of creating a powerful value proposition

Posted byIan Brodie on November 8th, 2020.

Now that you've got input from your clients about why they hired you, It's time to start crafting your value proposition.

I like to do this in a fairly structured way. And even if you're not mathematical by nature I think this helps.

What I do is list all the big areas of value I think that the business I'm looking at brings to their clients – based on what they say and what their clients have given them feedback on.

I think of the big problems they solve. The big goals they help them achieve. Then bounce around the financial, emotional and practical value that brings. Eventually, I want to rate the size of the value on a 1-5 scale just to make sure I'm focusing on the biggest ones.

Once I have a shortlist of the big areas of value I try to think about how each one is different to what their competitors offer.

Again, I'm going to try to use a 1-5 scale to rate the size of difference.

Sometimes – though it's very, very rare – you might offer some type of value that no one else does. A problem or solution only you can provide.

But normally you're focusing on the same areas of value as your competitors – you're just delivering them in a different way.

I help my folks get more clients and I'm certainly not the only one who does that. So when I'm thinking about how I'm different I need to think about how I deliver that differently.

Do I help them get more new clients than anyone else? Are they higher quality clients? Do we get them faster? Is it easier for them to do, or does it take less time?

Perhaps I use a different methodology that they find easier to fit into the way they work? Perhaps it's more in line with their values and they feel more comfortable doing it? Perhaps it's more reliable and consistent?

Think through all the ways in which you deliver the different types of value you've listed and rate how different they are to what others are doing.

By now you should have a ranked list of the types of value you can bring to your clients rated on how big the value is, and on how different it is to what your competitors are offering.

So if you were a sales trainer, the chances are that the primary value you bring is always going to be about helping your clients get more sales. But perhaps you have a number of unique ways you do that, for example:

• Your services are specifically focused on reinforcement of learning after the training course – meaning your clients really get results rather than having their people forget what they learned.
• Your training is based on a deeper understanding of the psychology of buyers and so it leads to a greater success rate.
• You're specialised in pharmaceutical sales – so your training is tailored to that market and the people you train can apply what they learn immediately rather than having to reinterpret it for their situation.

Which of these should you focus your value proposition on?

Most likely the one that's the most different from what others are offering.

So check: how many other trainers I compete with focus so much on reinforcement after the training course? How many go deep into buyer psychology? How many are specialised in pharma?

The answer to those questions tell you what to emphasis in your value proposition.

But don't jump to creating your value proposition quite yet. We still have one last step which we'll cover in the next email.

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This simple email gives you a much more powerful value proposition

Posted byIan Brodie on November 4th, 2020.

In Sunday's email I said that one of the best ways to create a powerful value proposition is to start with what you want it to be – even if you can't quite deliver on it yet.

Then set yourself the goal of making that value proposition a reality by refining what you deliver.

That way you're spending your time bringing a really strong value proposition to life, rather than wordsmithing a weak one hoping it'll do the trick.

In my next emails I'm going to talk about how to come up with that ambitious, future-focused value proposition.

But it's important to realise that you need to build that future on the strengths you have today.

For a sales trainer, for example, it's great if they decide they want to be seen as the trainer who bases their approach on the latest scientific advancements in the psychology of persuasion and influence.

But if they have no background in that, haven't been keeping up with the latest research and have no idea where to start – it'll take them way too long to get up to speed for this to be a value proposition they could use any time soon.

So it's a good idea to harness what you're already good at and make your future-focused value proposition something that extends it to give you a real edge.

But how do you know what you're already good at vs your competitors?

Well, sometimes you just know of course (though I would definitely check to confirm).

Sometimes you can get it from benchmarking your competitors offerings and what they say about them. I know that my online training is more in-depth and more practical than any competitors I've seen in the areas I cover for example – so that's something I could build on.

But it's important to try to understand it from your clients' perspective too.

That's where the magic email comes in.

In short, the magic is simply that when you sign up a new client, send them a welcome email that asks them what the primary reason they chose to work with you was.

Mostly when we send welcome emails we send our new clients a whole bunch of stuff to do to get started.

Quite rightly, we want to get them going and getting results fast.

But asking them to spend just a few minutes right at the start to answer that question (or an equivalent worded to suit your business) can pay huge dividends.

Of course, you'll have to decode what they say.

When I won my first big consulting project working for Gemini Consulting in the 90s I had dinner with the client decision-maker shortly afterwards. A few beers in I asked him why they chose us vs Accenture who they'd been working with for years.

His answer was that “we just kind of clicked with you and your team more”.

It took me quite a while to figure out what that actually meant and what we could do with it to win more similar projects.

You might need to do the same thinking based on what your clients say.

I can promise you it's worth it. And it will help you understand what direction to take your value proposition in.

And if you haven't been regularly gathering this feedback from new clients, it's well worth reaching out to your more recent clients and asking them.

Of course, I fully recognise that there are far more sophisticated methods for getting this kind of insight from clients. And sometimes getting an external firm to do the research for you helps too.

But if you're a small firm or a solo business, this is a great way to get started fast.

More Clients Memorandum

Final steps with your value proposition

Posted byIan Brodie on November 4th, 2020.

By now you should have collected your ideas for an ambitious value proposition that reflects the value you want to offer your clients and you can realistically get to.

Now it's time to refine it and start using it.

The first thing to look at is whether you can strengthen your value proposition by making it a bit more specific.

Do you deliver this value best for a specific group of people? Is there some additional benefit they get from you they don't get from others? Or do you do it in a way that removes a problem they normally have?

For example, if you were a sales trainer and you decide your value proposition was going to be all about helping people get more corporate sales, some of the ways you might strengthen that could be:

• More corporate clients for software startups (if that's who you could focus on)
• More corporate sales without pushy, aggressive sales techniques (if that's what many of your folks find uncomfortable)
• More corporate sales while building visibility and authority (assuming that's valuable to them)
• Double your corporate sales in 30 days (assuming you can do it!)

The more specific your value proposition, the stronger it feels to the people looking for that value.

Next, you're going to turn it into words you can use in different situations, for example:

• On your website home page
• On your “about us” page
• On your Linkedin profile
• In your introduction when you meet people face to face
• The way someone will introduce you to do a presentation

Each of these formats will need a slightly different type of wording.

For your website home page, Peep Laja of ConversionXL (who's done a lot of testing on this) recommends:

• An attention-grabbing headline that explains the value you bring in one sentence
• A sub-headline or 2-3 sentence paragraph that gives more details of who this is for and why this is valuable
• 3 bullet points listing the key benefits or features of your service
• A visual that reinforces your message (e.g. if you do highly engaging strategy workshops – us an image of you facilitating a highly engaged group of people in a workshop)

On your home page, I recommend using wording with the focus on your clients rather than on you. So for our sales trainer, it would be something like “Get more corporate clients without pushy, aggressive sales techniques”. ie it's them who gets the clients.

Whereas on your About page or in a personal introduction you'd word it more to be about you: “I help software startups get more corporate clients without pushy, aggressive sales techniques”. The focus is on you doing the helping.

Once you've got something you can use, test it.

That might be going out into the real world (when we're allowed to again) and seeing how people react.

Or it might be testing two different versions on your home page to see which results in more enquiries (if you get enough traffic for it to be statistically significant of course).

Or you could get feedback from trusted colleagues to see what they think (assuming they know your target clients well enough to reflect them). 

And even the act of saying it out loud gives you clues as to how well it comes across and allows you to improve it.

A brilliant value proposition sets the foundation for all your marketing. And I hope in these last few emails I've given you some useful ideas on how to create yours.

More Clients Memorandum

An unexpected way of creating a powerful value proposition

Posted byIan Brodie on November 1st, 2020.

Hi – Ian here.

As I mentioned in my last email, my next few messages are going to be about the topic you voted as the #1 you wanted to hear about:

»» Creating a powerful Value Proposition/Unique Selling Proposition (I'll use the terms interchangeably).

Now your value proposition is simply the big reason why someone would hire you (rather than doing nothing or hiring someone else). And it has two main components:

The value your clients get from working with you
How you're different (and better in your client's eyes) than the other options
If the value isn't clear, there's no reason for a client to shell out good money to work with you.

And if the differentiation isn't there, there's no reason for them to choose to work with you rather than someone else.

So normally most methodologies for creating value propositions set you the twin exercises of identifying what it is your clients value the most (that you can deliver) and what it is that marks you out as being the most different.

And then some kind of combining the two.

You can use rating systems. You can start with value and then check for difference. Or start with difference and check for value.

You can add things to boost the core value or difference (such as “without…” clauses).

But at the end of the day, any methodology that looks at both angles is going to be a solid one.

Except…

Doing this is really hard.

Knowing your clients and what they value inside out absolutely helps.

But it's often difficult to see from an outsider's perspective what's really different and valuable about you without it getting all generic.

“We have great service”. “We go the extra mile”. “We have the best people”. .

Unfortunately, everyone can say that. And they usually do.

It's oh-so easy to get stuck staring at a blank sheet of paper trying to find what's really different about you. And asking clients or contacts often doesn't help. They just get a “feeling” they like working with you.

But there is an approach that doesn't suffer from that problem. And it can result in much more powerful value propositions.

It's something I first heard from consultant Sean D'Souza (if you haven't got his book The Brain Audit it's well worth grabbing on Amazon).

D'Souza's insight is one of those things that seems obvious when you know it and makes you wish you'd thought of it yourself.

He points out that when you're creating a value proposition you don't have to spend forever analysing what you currently do to figure out how you're different in a valuable way.

You can decide how you want to be different and make it happen.

And that's particularly true in service businesses.

In a product business and especially for hard goods, you're kind of stuck with what you've got until a new product comes out.

But in a service business you can constantly tweak and improve your services to shape them how you want.

So, for example, if I train organisations in team-building and I decide that I want my value proposition to be that my training builds an effective team faster than anyone else's, then I can make that happen.

It won't be overnight. But I can invest in upgrading my models and my training approaches to focus them on best practices in rapid learning. And I can measure my success with clients to prove they get results fast.

I didn't have to scour the depths of my current services to find what I was doing that was different and hope that clients found it valuable.

I decided what valuable difference I wanted my value proposition to focus on and I made it happen.

Does that sound far-fetched?

Maybe in large organisation it is. In a big company I'd have to spend months in internal meetings trying to get our services updated. Then on training my colleagues to be able to deliver in a new way. Then setting up measurement systems and ensuring they actually happened.

But for a small company or solo business I can get change to happen much, much faster.

Not instantly of course. Depending on what you want your value proposition to be it may take you time to build up your knowledge and skills so you can deliver on it.

But it's doable.

And it means that your value proposition isn't constrained by what you currently do. You can base it round what you want to do and work towards it.

Much, much better than spending your time polishing and wordsmithing something that's inherently weak because it's just a reflection of internal ideas and perceived strengths.

More Clients Memorandum

How to get the right people to see your content

Posted byIan Brodie on October 18th, 2020.

In our last email we said that as a default, the best place for you to post your content is probably on Linkedin.

It's where people hang out for business. And it's easy to find potential clients with the search features.

And although people on Linkedin aren't as active as on Facebook, there's been a lot of progress in recent years.

But how do you make sure the right people see your content?

To figure that out, you have to understand the Linkedin algorithm a little bit.

Now I'm not saying I'm some deep, geeky algorithm expert. But I've learnt and tested enough that it's working well for me (and for a small gang I've been teaching this to recently).

Really there are two things you should know.

The first is that Linkedin by default only really shows your posts to your connections. And especially the ones you've recently interacted with.

If they like or comment on your posts, it can then show it to their connections too.

So very obviously, you should be connecting with and interacting with the people you want to see your content (there's a special “advanced” tip on how to make sure your connection request gets accepted next time).  

Secondly, Linkedin decides how many of those connections to show your post to based on how “engaging” it thinks the post is. In other words, it's trying to show people posts they'll enjoy and value.

Now since Linkedin isn't so advanced it can tell how engaging a post is just by looking at it, it has to go based on what other people think of it.

So what it does is initially show your post to a small percentage of your connections. And then it measures how they react.

If your post gets lots of likes and comments and people spend time reading it in the first couple of hours, then Linkedin will show the post to a bigger percentage of your connections (and a bit to the connections of the people who liked and commented too).

If that goes well, it'll show it more widely still. Rinse and repeat.

However, if your post gets very little love early on, it'll kill its reach stone dead.

Of course, it’s a bit more complex than that in practice. There are various potential reviews and filters in place to make sure people don't game the system and that it doesn’t end up sharing spammy content.

But that's the essence.

And there are a couple of important implications.

The first is that if you want your post to be seen widely by your connections, you need to be creating not just valuable content, but “likeable” and “commentable” content.

There's a strong overlap between good and “likeable” and “commentable” of course. But it tends to mean that stories work well rather than facts and figures. Asking questions works well. Writing about emotive topics works well.

But here's the other key implication that many people overlook…

It means that you have to be careful who you're connected to.

If like most of us, you've always kind of randomly accepted connection requests on Linkedin from people who look like decent sorts but who aren't particularly in your target market or connected to them then you may have a problem.

They might be lovely people, but if you write content on leadership skills for people in service businesses and they're not leaders or aspiring leaders in service businesses then they're not going to be interested in reading your posts.

The same is true of course no matter what your field. There will only really be a limited number of people genuinely interested in your content. Most likely potential clients because that's who you're writing to help.

So if these connections who aren't interested in your content end up being randomly selected by Linkedin as part of the initial small percentage they show a post to then, of course, they won't like or comment on it.

That's not a problem if 80% of your contacts are people who would be interested. A few who aren't won't hurt too much.

But if you've got lots of contacts who aren't interested in your content – 80:20 in the other direction – then it's a big problem.

It means that very few of the initial people your post is shared with will engage with it and Linkedin will think the post just isn't that good and stop sharing it.

Hardly any of your other connections will see it.

So you'll get hardly any of that lovely credibility building and relationship building you're looking for.

The answer is to prune your connections down sharply so they're almost all people who would be interested in the content you share.

That might seem a bit harsh.

It might mean disconnecting from genuinely nice people who you'd be happy to chat with if you met them.

But if you're serious about using content on Linkedin to reach your ideal clients you must make sure your connections are almost all the type of people who are going to be interested in that content.

Otherwise your content is hardly going to be seen by anyone.

Action step for now: take a look at your Linkedin connections and see how many of them you think are truly relevant and are likely to comment or like your posts.

You might well be shocked at just how many random connections you've picked up over the years that you really should prune back on.

More Clients Memorandum

You know it, I know it, let’s do it

Posted byIan Brodie on October 14th, 2020.

Where's the best place to post all this content I've been encouraging you to create?

The blindingly obvious answer is “where your ideal clients hang out?”. But what does that mean in practice?

Well, if you've built up a decent email list with a thousand or more subscribers, it's there. Or similarly, if you have something like a Facebook group you run that's big and active.

There's no better use of your time that keeping in touch in a way that adds value with people who've voluntarily signed up to hear from you.

But what if you don't have a decent-sized email list yet?

Then you have to go out and publish in places where your ideal clients already gather.

That might be a single article in a big-name publication like Harvard Business Review or its equivalent for you (click here for my interview with Dorie Clark on how to get published in prestigious publications).

Even better would be a regular column in an industry journal or website your ideal clients read.

Guest appearances on podcasts are a great option too – and podcast hosts are always on the lookout for good speakers with something new to say.

I wouldn't advise guest blog posting these days though.

It was all the rage a few years ago but it's become an industry in itself today. One dominated by agencies blasting out pitches for unoriginal and largely irrelevant articles to any blog site owner with a pulse.

I've stopped listening to them and most people I know who run successful sites have too.

Similarly, I'd avoid posting articles into groups on Facebook you don't own yourself unless you have the explicit permission of the group owner.

Even if the group is big, relevant and engaged and even if your articles are amazingly valuable, it's still effectively spam.

So where can you post if none of those options work for you?

I'm going to suggest what might be an obvious answer.

On your own Linkedin timeline.

And to a lesser degree, on your own Facebook timeline or page.

Posts on your own Linkedin timeline get shown to a percentage of your contacts. And if they like or comment on them, Linkedin shows the post to more of your contacts and some of theirs too.

Facebook is similar.

But the advantage of Linkedin is that you're likely to be connected to potential clients on there. Or to people who know them.

And if you're not, you can remedy that pretty quickly by searching and sending connection requests.

Unless your profile looks a bit like you're going to go all salesy on them, a good percentage of people will connect.

And unlike Twitter (and to a certain degree Facebook), Linkedin culture is still pretty civilised.

People will comment on your posts and give you positive feedback rather than getting into a flame war with you if they disagree.

Facebook may be a better option for some people depending on your client base.

But for most of us, Linkedin is our best default place for regularly posting content to build relationships with potential clients.

As I said right at the start you probably already knew that.

So let's do it.

More Clients Memorandum

How do I know what I think until…

Posted byIan Brodie on October 11th, 2020.

E. M. Forster said “How can I know what I think till I see what I say?”

I'm pretty sure I agree.

In fact, now I've written it down I'm certain I do ;)

There's huge value, I believe, in publishing your ideas. Not just for marketing purposes, but to sharpen them and improve them.

I've been posting pretty much daily on Linkedin for the last couple of weeks and every single time I've written something it's clarified my understanding of it.

Warren and Barton talked about this in their book “Thinking on Paper”. Writing isn't just “putting your ideas down on paper” – it's actually part of the thinking process.

Our brains only have limited working memory. We can't juggle enough concepts in there at one time to fully analyse complex ideas. We need to get them out so we can look at them, compare them to different ideas, properly scrutinize them, riff on them.

I regularly find that when I write something down I see discrepancies and inconsistencies I hadn't seen when the idea was just in my head.

Or I spot new connections and new options. It triggers more new ideas.

And, of course, you can get feedback from others.

You don't get any of that if you don't write down your ideas or otherwise express them physically in a form that gets them out of your head and in a way that you and others can review.

Sometimes, when I'm talking to someone about publishing their ideas as part of their marketing they'll say “I'm a do-er, not a writer” as if writing was somehow only for people who can't do.

But writing (or making videos or podcasts or any form of publishing your ideas) not only helps your marketing. It makes you a better do-er.

It makes your ideas better.

So I'm going to encourage you to write (or make videos or audio) more often. And to publish.

I'll tell you in the next email where I think the best place to publish is right now. 

More Clients Memorandum

The secret of great content

Posted byIan Brodie on October 7th, 2020.

Back when I was an active amateur magician I'd always go to watch the annual “close-up competition” at our local club.

Close-up is the ultimate form of magic for me because it's performed right under your spectator's noses. And at a magic club competition, it's performed right under the noses of people who know most of the tricks, secret moves and subterfuges.

After watching competitions for a number of years I began to notice a pattern.

Very often some of the worst performers one year were the best the next year.

It really puzzled me. There were people who were consistently good year-on-year, but who were never quite good enough to win.

And then there were a few who were a bit embarrassing one year or made a lot of mistakes who then were brilliant the next year. Very often the winner was someone who had been pretty so-so the previous year.

Eventually, I kind of figured it out.

The people who weren't all that good had to be pretty brave to put themselves forward for the competition, knowing they'd be criticised and most likely wouldn't win.

That same bravery meant they performed regularly for laypeople rather than staying home in their bedroom practising in front of a mirror to try to get everything perfect.

And performing “for real” in front of real spectators is where real improvements come from.

You can only learn so much practising in front of a mirror. You can get the technical side right, but you can't learn audience management or angles, or performance skills or humour, or mastering “outs” for when something goes wrong.

The thing that made the difference was that the “not so good” performers were brave enough to get out there and do magic in the real world. And so they improved fast.

A year later they were often the best performers.

When it comes to creating content to market your business it's important that content is great. Be that articles, podcasts, a book, a presentation, videos or whatever comes next.

But the path to great content isn't to “sit at home and practice”. It's to get out and perform. Publish your content. Get feedback. Improve.

Great content comes from bad content in a way – as long as you're prepared to put it out there and improve.

I've said regularly that I cringe when I look back at my old blog posts and videos.

But if I hadn't done them my writing and presenting wouldn’t have improved.

And as it turns out, they were good enough at the time for where I was in my business. 

If you're ever hovering over the publish button on your blog or YouTube or wherever –  just press it.

It's the first step to greatness.